Ralfe: The Strong Rand A Challenge

Gary Ralfe, a managing director at De Beers, says the strong rand posses a serious and immediate challenge to the company, mostly affecting its older underground mines in South Africa.

To battle the situation the company has set up several teams to find ways to reduce the impact on its operations. One of the explored venues is lay offs.

According to Ralfe, a critical review is underway, including overhead costs at corporate headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa to make sure that costs are minimized.

Regarding the lay offs, Ralfe says that every reasonable effort will be made to lessen any adverse effects on employees. “I am keenly aware of the impact on employees and on morale, and I assure you that, throughout the process, we will examine all avenues reasonably open to us to avoid, wherever possible, redundancy and retrenchment”.

These avenues will include redeployment of staff; a freeze on all recruitment; and consideration of voluntary separation combined with early retirement where appropriate.

 “We have faced similar challenges before in our long history and I have no doubt that De Beers will emerge as a more competitive and productive company, truly a South African national assets,” he concluded.